


How to ruin christmas dinner in ten easy steps or less

by Signe_chan



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bad Cooking, Christmas, Fluff, M/M, a bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 16:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signe_chan/pseuds/Signe_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint had never had a traditional Christmas so maybe it was asking a bit much to leave him in charge. </p><p>For Feelstide 2012 challenge 71</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to ruin christmas dinner in ten easy steps or less

Clint’s understanding of Christmas dinner was mostly theoretical. They’d never featured heavily in his life. Before the circus he remembered them for the tension more than the food. Sitting around a table with his family had never been a good memory. In the circus, well, nothing change just because it was a holiday. One year they’d had a turkey but it had to last so it had been made in to soup instead. He’d drunk that soup slowly, he still remembered it. Remembered thinking that’s what Christmas should taste like. 

Since the circus, well, Christmas had never really been a thing. Even when he’d joined SHIELD. Sometimes the mess hall would serve Christmas food but Clint had never paid much attention. From what he knew about Christmas it was a holiday for families, children and Christians. He wasn’t any of the above so he didn’t bother. 

This year was different, this year there was Phil. 

The thing with Phil had been going on for about six months before discussion of Christmas came up. It was good, really good. Better than anything Clint had before, though there wasn’t much competition. It had been a long time in starting and even before they’d gone to bed together Clint knew he was going to do everything he could to stay. 

He hadn’t thought what everything he could might involve. He hadn’t thought about holidays, the fact that Phil had grown up in a normal home and might have different expectations of the holiday. 

Phil had family. Sure, he didn’t see then often, but he had them. Not family like Barney who he’s not heard from in years but a mother who he visited on thanksgiving (Clint, luckily, was saved from that one by a mission) and a sister who had two children. The children needed gifts, Clint had never bought a child’s toy before in his life. How was he meant to have an opinion on what an eight year old girl he’d never met might like? He went along, though, because it made Phil happy to have him there. To share it with him. 

Hell, it wasn’t actually so bad. He liked Christmas well enough. The lights were nice. He’d never had a Christmas tree before but Phil let him loose on theirs and he was immensely satisfied with the results, even if maybe it was a little too heavily decorated on the left side. Phil had taken a picture of him stood next to it and set it as the background of his phone. 

They’d been food shopping together and bought more food than two people could feasibly eat. Phil had explained that half of the joy was buying more food then you could feasibly eat and then not having to cook for a few days. Clint wasn’t sure that cooking all your meals in one go and living of leftovers was meant to be a luxury, it sounded a little too much like bad times. He was willing to go along with it though, it was what Phil wanted. 

In fact he was almost looking forward to it. Their plan was to watch bad TV, cook a massive meal, eat the massive meal, maybe watch a movie. Just the two of them and a closed door between them and the world. It wasn’t often they got to do that and maybe Christmas didn’t mean a hell of a lot to him but time alone with Phil did. 

That lasted until about 7AM when Phil’s mobile rang. His emergency mobile. 

Of course evil would choose Christmas Day to happen. To add insult to injury, apparently Clint wasn’t needed for this so at 7:15 on Christmas morning he was sat alone in the flat with nowhere to go. 

He put on a movie and tried to pretend he didn’t care. Tried to pretend he hadn’t gotten his hopes up, just a little. Tried to pretend he wasn’t keeping his phone in arms reach in case Phil phoned him. 

It was early afternoon when it rang. Clint made himself wait for three rings before picking it up.

“Hey,” he said, trying for casual. He wasn’t sure how well he did. He REALLY wanted Phil home. 

“Hey yourself,” Phil said, and he sounded exhausted already. “I should have this wrapped up in a couple of hours and be home, I was wondering how you felt about starting to cook dinner without me?” 

“You do want it to be edible, right?” Clint asked, flopping back on the couch. His cooking skills were well known for all the wrong reasons. He burnt toast, there was no way he could do this. 

“I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think you could do it, Clint,” Phil said, and he sounded so damn persuasive. “I don’t think there’ll be time when I get home and I just...I really wanted to eat Christmas dinner with you...” 

“We could have it tomorrow?” Clint tried, hopefully. “Push the entire thing back a day, get takeout tonight?” 

“Sorry, they’re going to need me tomorrow too,” Phil said, and he sounded so damn tired Clint just wanted to pick up and go over there, tell then they couldn’t have Phil any more and bring him home. “I know I promised you an entire day, I might need to take a rain check.” 

“It’s alright,” Clint said with a sigh, though he knew it wasn’t. He looked over at the kitchen, this was going to end so badly. 

“Alright, I’ll try to start dinner. But, look, don’t be disappointed if it all goes wrong...” 

“I trust you with this,” Phil said, and he sounded do damn sincere, Clint didn’t want to disappoint him but he got the impression he might not be able to help it. 

After hanging up he headed to the kitchen and opened the cupboards. He honestly hadn’t been paying attention when they shopped and he had no idea what was for Christmas, what wasn’t, and how he was meant to combine the Christmas things to make a meal. 

After staring in to the cupboard for a few minutes he headed back to the living room and grabbed his laptop. 

The internet was actually pretty useful and he gathered pretty quickly that, yes, the turkey was definitely the first thing he needed to take care of and he could panic about the rest after. 

He didn’t know why they two of them needed an entire bird, the waste of it kind of bothered him but that, at least, he couldn’t mess up. Phil had already prepped it and it was sat in the middle of the fridge in a shallow tray, wrapped up in tin foil like a present. He had the sense, at least, to check it was ready for the oven, but it seemed good to go. No wrapping still on it and the skin had been rubbed with something which was honestly more then he’d think to do. 

He turned the oven on to a medium heat and put it in, scribbling the time down on the notepad Phil stuck to the back of the fridge. He wasn’t sure how long it needed but at least now he knew how long it had been in there. 

He could do this. 

~*~*~*~

Phil did his best not to let on but Christmas was his favorite time of the year. It had always been a big deal at his house when he was a child, something they built up to for months. His dad was the kind of guy who decorated the entire house with Christmas lights. He would have done up the entire neighborhood if the neighbors had let him. 

As well as the lights there was always the food. His mother wasn’t really the world’s best chef but at Christmas food was something everyone took part in. There were cookies and cakes and the Christmas dinner. Back then Christmas day had involved a sprawl of distant relatives who would turn up with steaming bowls of roasted vegetables, sausages wrapped in bacon, frosted sugar cookies. 

It was the only time of the year he’d really get to see a lot of the family, and as he grew older and they became more scattered he appreciated that. 

When his dad died, the big Christmas party died with him. They tried for a few years but it was obvious pretty early in that it was never going to be the same again. People stopped turning up, his sister got married and, eventually, he got the job with SHIELD and accepted he wasn’t going to make it home most years. 

He knew that Clint didn’t have any of this, or only a little of this. He knew the man’s history, knew the kind of defensive posture he took when Christmas was mentioned, as though the holiday has been conceived to aggrieve him personally. It was a common belief around SHIELD that Clint hated the holiday, but Phil thought he knew him better than that. He wasn’t angry, he was defensive, which spoke of something he didn’t quite get and didn’t want to admit to not quite getting. 

So Phil planned their Christmas. Nothing big, just the two of them (and that was enough of a selling point, really). He planned a pretty traditional dinner, a few good Christmas movies, and to not pick up the phone. 

Some days he really hated his job. 

Of course someone would decide that Christmas Day was the ideal time to do something evil. They’d made the rather ridiculous assumption that NOBODY would be paying ANY attention because it was Christmas! Phil wished he hadn’t been paying any attention. He’d rather be home and in bed with Clint any day. 

He got a break in the early afternoon, between foiling the guy’s plans and initial statements, to phone home. Clint had sounded miserable and put out and Phil hated that even more. He was meant to be giving Clint a reason to love this holiday, meant to be sharing something he loved and instead he was here interviewing a low-league criminal who thought he was something more and Clint was at home, probably sat on the couch pretending he didn’t care. 

If he was asked later he wouldn’t be able to tell you what possessed him to make the decision he did but, there you have it. For some reason it seemed like a really good idea to ask Clint to cook. There was a logic behind it. The entire holiday was going to be a waste if they didn’t even have a Christmas dinner. Clint needed something to cheer him up. Clint didn’t have any confidence in the kitchen so this could help. Phil had done a lot of the prep work the night before, after all. 

The ass who thought Christmas was a good day for evil decided he wasn’t going to talk which made a mess of Phil’s schedule right from the outset. Really, they guy should have just got the hint and given up but he didn’t so it was, in fact, nearly four hours after he’d called Clint when he finally made it back to the flat. 

He didn’t take it as a good sign that the first thing he smelt was burning. 

Clint was stood in the middle of the kitchen looking like a rabbit that was about to bolt and it took Phil about five seconds to work out why. The table was set, after a fashion, and there was food on it. That was the problem. The burning smell was coming from the parsnips, which were blackened. The potatoes, by contrast looked mostly raw so how he’d managed to achieve that was a bit of a mystery. The Turkey was on the table, only slightly blackened on the outside but Phil could see where Clint had cut it open and the inside was raw. 

That seemed to be as far as he’d got in his quest for Christmas dinner. Phil took it all in for a minute, walking to the table and stopping to confirm that, yes, the potatoes were raw. 

He’d had a long day, spent entirely with an idiot who thought he had a right to blow up downtown New York and then that he had a right to ruin the rest of Phil’s plans by not talking. He’d been daydreaming about this meal for hours, about Clint’s smile when he tried the things Phil had prepared and he had cooked. About how it was going to be perfect. It wouldn’t matter that he’d been in the office all day because they’d have this at least. 

He burst out laughing. He wasn’t sure where the laughter had come from, maybe it was either that or cry, but he couldn’t help it. Clint looked offended but Phil reached over, wrapping an arm around his neck and leaning his head on his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” Clint said, and he sounded distant and defensive and Phil knew he should stop laughing and take this seriously but he couldn’t. 

“I love you,” he said instead, pressing a kiss of Clint’s neck. He pulled back, trying to stop his laughter, to find Clint looking at him in confusion. “Let’s find the Chinese menu. They’ll still be open, right?” 

“Yeah, we got a flyer,” Clint mumbled. Phil laughed again, pulling him in for a quick kiss. Clint just looked as confused as hell and, after a few seconds, made his escape. Phil just sat down at the table and tried to calm himself down, but every time he caught sight of the meal he laughed again. 

~*~*~*~

“I’m sorry,” Phil said. Clint nodded, though he wasn’t sure what Phil was apologizing for. His chow mein was going cold in the carton but he couldn’t bring himself to eat it. It SHOULD have been simple. An idiot should have been able to manage it. People all over the country had managed it but Clint couldn’t. He’d made a complete mess of their first Christmas and apparently driven Phil mad. It had taken him nearly half an hour to stop laughing completely. 

“I’m sorry, too,” he said, though he’d said it before. He was sorry. Sorry he couldn’t even do this simple thing for Phil, even though he wanted to so much. 

“No, don’t be,” Phil mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I knew you’d never cooked a Christmas dinner, I should never have asked you to. I think that the truth of it is I wanted something back that’s gone.” 

“What’s gone?” Clint asked, turning quickly. It wasn’t something between them, he hoped. He’d tried, he’d tried so hard. He hoped Phil didn’t think something between them was gone. 

“My childhood,” Phil replied, reaching up to trace a hand down Clint’s jaw. “My dad was in to Christmas in a big way. It was the event of the year in our house, we used to build up to it for months and the Christmas dinner was the best part. I think...I think I was trying to take you back there, in a way. I wish I’d been able to introduce you to my dad, he’d have loved you. I was trying to make those Christmases happen again here and they can’t.” 

“They can,” Clint insisted, jaw clenching. If that was what Phil needed then he’d give him it. “I’ll do better next year.” 

“No, Clint. They can’t and that’s alright. We’re alright. What we are is different from the people my parents were. Have you even had a proper Christmas dinner?” 

“Not really,” Clint mumbled, shifting in his seat. He hadn’t wanted to talk about this but if it helped. “I mean, it wasn’t a thing. I’ve had canteen Christmas dinner but people have told me it doesn’t count. Once in the circus we had Turkey soup for Christmas...” 

“Turkey soup isn’t a bad plan,” Phil said with a smile. “Maybe we can make some tomorrow out of the remains of this meal. The thing is, Clint, you and I have very different ideas about what Christmas is. I was trying to make you live my idea, but that’s not you, it’s not us. I don’t need to recreate the Christmases of my childhood, I need to start building new traditions with you.” 

“Spoiled dinner and Chinese takeout isn’t a tradition,” Clint mumbled, poking at his chow mein.

“No,” Phil agreed. “The takeout might be though, we can sidestep by the dinner next time. Or do something else. It doesn’t matter. The turkey doesn’t matter. We’re both here, finally. That’s all that matters. I’m here with you.” 

“You’re a sap,” Clint declared, though he did let his head drop on to Phil’s shoulder. He got it, he did. He even kind of liked the idea, though he thought maybe he should have one Christmas how they were meant to be before they started making their own rules. Still, this was nice. Being here with Phil. It was all he’d wanted, after all. Phil. 

“Yes,” Phil agreed. “Right now I am. Eat your chow mein.” 

“Yes boss,” Clint agreed, scooping some noodles in to his mouth. Phil kissed his forehead and reached for the remote, flipping the TV over to some horrible Christmas movie and Clint let himself relax. Maybe he’d made a mess but Phil didn’t seem mad and that was the important thing. As long as he had Phil, everything else was salvageable.


End file.
